NEWS RELEASE, 08/17/98

University of California, Berkeley's law school
announces major increase in incoming minority students over last year's
entering class

By Lujuana Treadwell, School of Law, Boalt Hall

BERKELEY -- The University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (Boalt
Hall) announced today (Mon., Aug. 17) that its 1998 entering class includes
a major increase in minority students over its 1997 entering class. The
1997 class was the first admitted after new University of California admissions
policies prohibited the use of affirmative action.

Boalt Hall Dean Herma Hill Kay described this increase as "significant"
and expressed her gratitude for the determined efforts of the many people
- faculty, students, alumni, administrators, bar associations and law firms
- who made it possible.

"While these results are gratifying," said Kay, "they
are still below the level of traditionally underrepresented minority students
enrolled at Boalt prior to 1997. We remain committed to continue a vigorous
recruitment policy that can produce the diverse student body needed for
a vibrant legal education consistent with existing university policy and
applicable law."

This year Boalt Hall admitted 857 of its 4,587 applicants in order to
yield a class of 275. Of those who begin the study of law at Berkeley today,
85 are members of minority groups as compared to 62 minority students in
last year's entering class. Virtually all of the increase is among students
from traditionally underrepresented groups.

Comparison of Minority Enrollment

1998
First Year Students 1997 First
Year Students*

Asian 33
32
(5 defers)

Asian Subgroups 17 15
(1 defer)

African American 9 1
(1 defer)

Chicano 16
6
(3 defers)

Latino 8
8
(4 defers)

Native American 2 0

* This table includes students who were admitted in 1996 under the former
admissions policy (which included affirmative action) and deferred their
enrollment to 1997.

One additional African American student admitted for fall 1998 deferred
enrollment to 1999.

The increase in racial and ethnic diversity results in part from a series
of changes in Boalt Hall's admissions policy made by the faculty and admissions
office to ensure that each applicant 's full range of qualifications is
considered. It also results in part from expanded efforts on the part of
the law school and the private bar to persuade admitted students to enroll.

The admissions policy changes included:

o Increasing the pool of applicants from which the faculty admissions
committee made its selections;

o Reporting the results of the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) to committee
members in score bands to reflect the standard error of measurement and
alert admissions committee members that one-, two- or three-point differences
between students are not significant;

o No longer grouping applicant files according to index scores [made
up of the LSAT score and undergraduate grade point average (UGPA)], thus
eliminating sharp cut-off points between applicants;

o Allowing applicants with somewhat lower LSAT scores to demonstrate
that their excellent academic performance in college was not accurately
predicted by their SAT scores;

o Discontinuing the use of a formula previously used to weigh undergraduate
grade point averages according to the institution attended and instead allowing
admissions committee members to make their own evaluations.

"These changes, while relatively modest, were very important,"
said Kay. "They helped dispel the false public impression that Boalt
Hall is hostile to minority candidates, permitted the director of admissions
to exercise wider discretion in admitting applicants than he had done in
prior years and allowed the admissions committee to focus more than in prior
years on non-numerical qualifications as well as numerical indicators."

Once the students had been admitted, Boalt Hall undertook aggressive
and expanded efforts to persuade them to enroll. These efforts included:

o Joining with alumni to host receptions around the country for all admitted
students;

o Inviting admitted students to visit Boalt Hall, where they were greeted
by current students and given individualized tours of the school, attended
classes and met faculty members;

o Producing and distributing an eight-minute video entitled "Welcome
to Boalt Hall" featuring Boalt Hall students, faculty and alumni (funded
by a gift from Sun Micro Systems and a one-time recruitment allowance from
the University of California Office of the President);

o Phone calls by faculty, students, staff and administrators to many
of the admitted students, both minority and non-minority, encouraging them
to enroll at Boalt Hall.

Kay especially thanked the Bar Association of San Francisco and the Wiley
Manuel Law Foundation, both of which created private, independently funded
scholarship programs to support minority students who had been admitted
to Bay Area law schools, including Boalt Hall.